Blackout, Veep and Alan Partridge On Open Books: TV Picks

TV preview:
Alan Partridge comes back for more on Open Books, Selina becomes the most powerful person in the world on in Veep and
Christopher Eccleston plays a local councillor dogged by paranoia in Blackout.

In Mad Men, Don Draper and Roger Sterling make a penchant for liquor just drip with cool. In Blackout, a dishevelled Christopher Eccleston makes the hard stuff look ravaging and poisonous, as he plays a local councillor whose idealism has long faded. His alcoholism leads to a disintegrating family life and, crucially, blackouts, in which he may have committed a fatal crime – a paranoia that dogs him when his career finally takes an upward turn.

Alan Partridge On Open Books With Martin Bryce, Sky Atlantic, 9pm

After last’s week’s welcome Partridge Pilgrimage, Steve Coogan gives us another one-off special, this time parodying the kind of quietly deferential book shows that pepper late-night arts schedules. Open Books is ‘Norfolk’s foremost forum for lovers of literature’ and Alan, sporting a necktie, tweed and floppy hair, has his memoir to promote. No prizes for guessing he needs little help from his interviewer (played by Look Around You’s Robert Popper) to dig himself into ever-sizeable holes as he tries to act the literary colossus.Veep, Sky Atlantic, 10pm

While the president has chest pains on a trip abroad, vice-president Selina becomes the most powerful woman in the world… for about five minutes. After which she grudgingly fulfils a ‘normalising’ meet and greet at a yoghurt shop, which ends in disaster. It’s a hilarious and beautiful demonstration in how far the mighty can fall – this is the episode that will have you hooked.

Daredevils, C4, 10pm

What makes 26-year-old Scot Danny MacAskill risk life and limb by extreme cycling? After becoming a hit on YouTube, where you can see him do 360-degree spins down concrete steps and cycle precariously along spiky fences, he’s on a quest to discover what part science and psychology plays in his jaw-dropping stunts. Wannabe daredevils take note – his antics have seen the bike mechanic become a riding professional, and a bearer on the Olympics torch relay.

Coming Up, C4, 11.10pmC4 returns with its showcase of new writing and directing talent. The first of the seven 25-minute pieces has Being Human’s Russell Tovey star in a story of thwarted love and ambition set in New Cross, south-east London.Film Choice: The Fugitive, ITV2, 10pm

Harrison Ford is our man on the run – this being back in the days when he could – in this taut Oscar-winning thriller based on a 1960s US TV show. He plays Dr Richard Kimble, a surgeon wrongfully accused of murdering his wife, who turns fugitive amid a spectacular bus-train crash en route to death row. Tommy Lee Jones is the cat to Ford’s frantic-legged mouse in this exhilarating ride that only the paciest Bourne movie could ever hope to equal.